Whilst thick on Alma's blood-stained river By a swift change to music, nobler From those red banks the gathered ranks On, on, through wild and wondrous regions Echoed their iron tread, Whilst voices old before them rolled'Make way for Alma's dead.' Like mighty winds before them ever, Swept from their track, huge bars run back, Till, to the inmost home of heroes They led that hero line, Where with a flame no years can tame The stars of honour shine. As forward stepped each fearless soldier, Wide, wide outflung, grim plaudits rung Next, upon gloomy phantom chargers, Who rushed to die, without reply, For duty, not for fame. Then, from their place of ancient glory, Three hundred men, of the Grecian glen, And the long-silent flutes of Sparta Yet louder at the solemn portal, And those from Inkerman swarm onwards, One man to nine, till their thin line Lay, where at first it stood. But, though cheered high by mailèd millions, In each proud face the eye might trace A coming woe which deepened ever, Our bravest, tossed to plague and frost, All through that dim despairing winter, Bands hunger-worn, in raiment torn, And patient, from the sullen trenches Wrath glided o'er the Hall of Heroes, As clouds that drift breathe darkness swift Wrath glided o'er the Hall of Heroes, Whilst all felt fear, lest they should hear And if unstained that ancient banner Let none forget how vast the debt Let none forget THE OTHERS, marching Whose bodies sleep, by that grim deep Which shakes the Euxine shore. Sir Francis Doyle. 187 THE END OF ALL (From the Persian of Omar Khayyam.) THE worldly hope men set their hearts upon Like snow upon the desert's dusty face, How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp They say the lion and the lizard keep And this reviving herb whose tender green Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows To-morrow!-why, to-morrow I may be And we, that now make merry in the room Ourselves must we beneath the couch of earth Descend ourselves to make a couch-for whom? Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, Before we too into the dust descend; Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and-sans end! Edward FitzGerald. 188 SPRING (Pippa Passes.) THE year's at the spring, The hill-side's dew-pearled; Robert Browning. 189 THE TIDE-RIVER CLEAR and cool, clear and cool, By shining shingle, and foaming weir; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul, Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? Strong and free, strong and free, Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Charles Kingsley. |